Crash Cover – 2nd May 1953 Salvaged Crash cover to Messrs. H...

Hammer

£44

Crash Cover – 2nd May 1953 Salvaged Crash cover to Messrs. Herbert Terry & Sons Ltd., Worcestershire, Redditch, England. Envelope from A.M Daisy & Co., (Overseas) P.O. Box 1515 Singapore. With four Singapore Registration Cancellations 1 May 53. Consequently stamped ‘Salvaged Mail “Comet” Crash, Near G.. 2nd. May 1953.” This crash from BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) Flight 783 Flight 783 in the remote Jagalgori district near Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, in 1953. On 2 May 1953, the first anniversary of the maiden commercial flight of the Comet and 50 years since the first powered flight by man-made heavier-than-air machines, Flight 783 took off from Dum Dum Airport in Calcutta en route from Singapore to London. It flew into a severe thunderstorm and suffered a catastrophic wing failure and in-flight breakup while climbing through 10,000 ft. The dismembered sections of the airframe plummeted to the ground in flames. All 43 passengers and crew on board were sadly killed. Some were on the way to London for the coronation of Elizabeth II.